North of Tomorrow – The Art of Moving Forward in “Intangible Lines”

“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.” That line from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was the first thing that came to mind the moment Big Wide World started to play. There’s something about the song’s open-hearted wonder — its sense of shared motion — that feels like the heartbeat of North of Tomorrow. It’s not nostalgia, it’s the beauty of forward motion, of friends who’ve lived enough to understand that time flies, but music can still stop it for a while.

North of Tomorrow isn’t your typical band-on-the-rise. They’ve been around the block a few times — or, more accurately, around the map. The trio of Brian Mueller, Gary Adrian, and Stephen Rogers first came together as kids in different corners of America, cutting their teeth in local bands before converging in Phoenix, forming an earlier group called Talus. After years of gigging across the western U.S., they disbanded, drifted, and, years later, found their way back to each other — older, wiser, and still driven by the same musical curiosity. Their latest record, Intangible Lines, released on their own label Melba Toast Records, is both a homecoming and a renewal.

“We don’t really sit down and say, ‘let’s make a rock album’ or ‘let’s make something jazzy,’” says Brian, the band’s main songwriter. “We just follow what feels honest at that moment.” That honesty has led North of Tomorrow down some unpredictable paths. Across Intangible Lines’ twelve tracks, you can hear echoes of Peter Gabriel’s cinematic sweep, David Bowie’s shapeshifting edge, Radiohead’s dream logic, and Steely Dan’s immaculate craft, yet none of it feels borrowed. Every song is its own little world, alive with invention and warmth.

On Maybe Yes, they wrap romantic indecision in a playful pop groove that’s equal parts sly and sincere. St. St. dives into something grittier, a blues-tinted meditation on heartbreak and consequence. Then there’s When the Purple Flower Blooms — one of the record’s most haunting tracks — a pastoral, almost spiritual reflection that feels like it could have come from another time. Through it all, Mueller’s vocals carry a quiet conviction, supported by Adrian’s melodic bass work and Rogers’ meticulous ear for texture.

Their approach has been called the Steely Dan method — write the songs, then bring in talented players from all over the world to flesh them out. For Intangible Lines, that meant tapping into a global network of musicians — from Italy, Poland, and India to Montreal, Nashville, and L.A.

It helps that the album sounds absolutely pristine. Mastered by Bob Katz of Digital Domain (whose credits include Grammy winners and the classic textbook Mastering Audio), and with vinyl mastering handled by The Bakery in Los Angeles, the record carries the kind of sonic depth that rewards repeated listening. Each track breathes and each instrument has room to live. It’s the kind of care that reveals a band deeply invested in musicianship and sound quality — not in a showy way, but in the quiet confidence of players who’ve done this long enough to know that craft matters.

Still, Intangible Lines isn’t just about precision. There’s a looseness to it, a humanity that comes from years of friendship and shared experience. You can hear it in the easy swing of Wanted to Say Something or the bittersweet melancholy of Time Flies, which opens the album with a lyric that feels personal: “Well now is that future / how time flies…” That sense of time — of looking back and forward all at once — runs through the whole record.

The band’s name is apt: North of Tomorrow. It suggests a destination just beyond reach, a compass point rather than a finish line. “We’ve all done other things,” Brian admits. “Careers, families, life. But music never really leaves you. You just keep following where it leads.”

For now, that journey has led to Intangible Lines — a record that manages to be both sophisticated and full of heart. It’s music made by people who still care about songs — about melodies, stories, and the strange magic that happens when sound and feeling line up just right.